Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Learning to learn is a reduction in the amount of training neededfor task attainment across a series of similar tasks. Transferdifferentiates (adult) humans from other species, portending awindow into unique aspects of human learning. However, itsunclear whether such differences are quantitative, or qualitativeand what it means for the evolution/development of cognition.In this paper, learning is regarded as a (categorical) limit. Alimit is a universal construction, and so transfer follows froma (generalized) optimization process. This result provides aformal basis for comparison/contrast of learning transfer in hu-mans and other species—another step to bringing the empiricalquestion into sharper relief.